


The Corpse

by Poetic_Poltergeist



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Redemtion, angsty boy has reflections, dragon reid - Freeform, evil!reid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetic_Poltergeist/pseuds/Poetic_Poltergeist
Summary: Life and death sit bickering above his tomb, while something else creeps beside him. A grave robber, stripping him of his humanity, leaving the empty coffin-of-a-corpse behind.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Corpse

Awaking from rigor mortis was a phenomena he was forced to repeat every evening. Dead tissues, ridged limbs, glassy eyes, shifting about as the cadaver sat itself upright, mocking a living breathing body. Lungs that had stilled while discontinuous sleep took them began their habitual search for unnecessary air.

Decay hadn’t quite robbed the corpse of his handsome features, making it easy to ignore that he wore a pale hide that did not fit quite right anymore; waxen, cool, expired, the blood underneath dried up long ago. At the tips of his stiff fingers, the skin retracted, retreating from the wicked and trembling claws. In his shattered-mirror-mind, he might recall a time when his hands were not stark, brittle, and unfeeling as they were now, repeating the formulas to chase aliment away.

Counting chemicals, measuring dosages, how many litres could a body hold. It was easy to know what life was, how to save one, what drugs to give, and how to heal a wound. Yet he couldn’t quite recall what it felt like to be alive anymore. Thinking death was merely a lack of life was a luxury he once revelled in. 

Winter once again came, stalking forth from a white crypt, filling the streets with black ice and dark nights, slipping through the heavy curtains, leaving a nasty bite on the cadaver. The cold from the icy teeth never went away; a permanent chill under his skin, hailing from his creaking bones until he was frozen solid. A scar upon his soul, he wondered if his heart-that-never-quit would cease, for it was the last piece that truly moved as if there was any blood left for it pump. 

Time must have forgotten him, for he walked endless nights, never changing beyond his ever-growing hunger. If it were not for that faint pulse in his withered veins, he was sure these seconds and hours would come to a halt. A grain of sand stuck at the top of an hourglass, wanting to fall, to cease to count, to finally rest at the bottom, dreaming of being buried, surrounded by the souls that slipped through the glass before him. For now, he was alone and trapped at the top of the hourglass, preventing it from completing its sole purpose.

A tortured grain of sand, decaying upright in a bloodied suit, knowing not the warmth of day, but the hatred of searing flames; not the taste of nourishment, but the disgust of a feast; not the echoes of hunger, but the cacophony of endless starvation; not the tender caresses of a kiss, but the warmth of life on his lips; not the familiarity of those who held dearest, but the abyss their absence left in his quiet chest.

Walking among life was one thing, being there was another.

~~~~~~

Carefully crating the chemical cocktails sealed in candid glass, the porcelain pale, yet painfully precise, fingers showed no ruddy bloodstains, nor odious claws. Hands of a delicate doctor with near-divine skills, not of a hungry beast stalking the streets, nor the swollen decaying fingers of the dead.

Choice was the burden of man, a constant battle over decisions wagering detriment and deliverance. A bloody battle, in which the briefest slip of self-control could dismantle what normalcy Jonathan Reid had left. He chose to pursue a career as a doctor, and even when robbed by the affairs of gods, he chose to be a doctor before a beast. 

That remained true, despite the crepuscular creature who sunk his carnivorous teeth into his carefully chosen victims. Justification for terrible deeds comes easy when one is desperate, killing those whose actions destroyed others. Oh, but how easy is it to get drunk on power when one plays God, choosing who lives and who dies. The “good doctor” soon found himself culling people for minor malefactors, or worse innocent, albeit miserable, people.

Flames, hungrier than any vampire, so hot his candle skin was nearly melting in the glow. The blaze devoured the woman he held dear. Doctor Jonathan Reid stood still, watching as the fire embraced her, its soft caresses turning her flesh black. Inhuman eyes stared on as Elizabeth Ashbury’s tissues burned and melted off her crumpling chassis. 

Doctor Reid did nothing to save her.

Carefully stepping over a fallen knight, Jonathan turned a cold shoulder to his guiding light. He felt nothing as navigated his way out of the crumbling castle. It was not for another few nights that he finally fell onto his knees and sobbed.

Finality through fire sobered and tamed the dragon. Reid’s soul burned as if he had stepped into the blaze in place of Ashbury. Thus, on his knees under a moonless sky, he mourned. He mourned his beloved, his mother, the sister he twice slaughtered, and all the lives he had stolen.

Brought to his knees, hunched forward, sobbing into the grass, Doctor Jonathan Reid swore he would repent, for Mary, for his mother, for Lady Ashbury.

**Author's Note:**

> Be gentle with me, it's baby's first fic.


End file.
